Posts by Jenks Farmer
No One Knows Best
On our farm, in our garden design work, we work as a team with a common goal. Everyone chips in for digging, washing, boxing, welcoming guests, and cleaning tools. But everyone gets to explore passions and develop skills. Sam Engler’s writing talent has awed me since he started here – at 16 years old. Home…
Read MoreFarm Lunch & Learn
A little farmstead down a bumpy dirt road, a lot of physical work and some ingenuity — that’s what American agriculture grew up on. Lots of us have come back to that after sowing oats around the globe, running away then thinking we could figure out a way to re-make those farmsteads with a new…
Read MoreNative Trees Handout
This is a plant list for a presentation for Columbia Green Foundations. We’ll leave it posted here for just 24 hours! TIPS Start Small Show Your Root Flare Plant for Diversity Take Care; Water, Lime, and Root Zone BIG TREES Bald Cyprus Taxodium distichum ‘Lindsey Skyward’, ‘Shawnee Brave’,…
Read MoreBuild Your Soil & Soul with Late Summer Cover Crops
Once I considered writing a book called Farm, Yard, Garden. The premise would be that farming and horticulture are based on the same science but used for different goals. What a mistake that would have been. Big agriculture and my farm, yard, or garden have almost nothing in common. Being a part of, a…
Read MoreMy Purple Rain Trauma & Gardens Inspired by Classic Album Cover Art
Gardens and music connect us Riverbanks’ horticulture team planted flowers to match iconic album cover art. When Tom and I walked the gardens today, we laughed, talked about our favorite old music, and lingered longer because of this exhibit. He even taught me something; Andy Warhol took the famous zipper-bulging crotch photo for the Rolling…
Read MoreConnections Between Plants and People
A Story by Summer Intern Iris Moore Every person has their own story and plants are no different. As living things, I find plants to be very personal. If I get a plant from someone, I think of it as an extension of them and their relationship with me. Hearing stories from people has helped…
Read MoreFarm Days; Garden Lunch & Learn
We’re happy to offer group tours in the summer of 2022. Click here to email inquiry. Group size limited to 15- 30 people with covid safe protocols. Arrive around 9 a.m. for a tour of our specialty nursery, and an introduction to the other aspects of the design business. We’ll walk the fields, hang out…
Read MoreEryngium pandanifolium Needs a Better Name & It Oughta Mention Tree Frogs
Like the best of “exclamation point” plants, giant eryngium adds evergreen structure to a garden. But like, drought-tolerant plants, the leaves look stiff and foreboding to some people. One garden client used to constantly tell me to leave my ‘pokey and prickly’ plants out of her designs! Some of those things can be hell to…
Read MoreSyllabub! Home Grown Ginger in a Bubble Cocktail
Syllabub is an old-school Southern desert. When I was little, the center of neighbors’ Christmas party was a huge bucket and real, antique syllabub pump. What’s more fun than making bubbles inside? Syllabub making makes a party. Elaborate contraptions for blowing bubbles into sweetened cream and whiskey become the center of attention and…
Read MoreThe Chimney Fire Christmas
In a flash, we went from a cozy evening watching Carol Burnett Show to roaring flames and panic. I knew my job, my place.
Was being tied on top of a 3 story house holding a freezing hose frightening? No, for a 13-year-old country boy, this night was nothing short of exhilarating.
Read More